Sometimes Sherlock Wished He'd Kept the Skull
by GIRL IN STORY
Summary: Sherlock knew he was being deliberately obtuse, but he spent so much time being accidentally brilliant that he felt he was due. No pairings. Tag for The Empty Hearse.
1. Sherlock

A/N: This is set immediately after The Empty Hearse, and it will contain spoilers. I've only seen that episode once, and I haven't had time to proofread, so I apologize in advance for any errors.

* * *

After everyone had left, press and friends and fiancés, Sherlock stood alone in the middle of 221B Baker Street. He'd ushered Mrs. Hudson back to her flat, telling her that, for once, he would do the tidying up himself.

Sherlock usually opted for solitude, unless he was thinking out loud or showing off, which he'd found himself doing more these past two days than he had in the past two years combined.

During his hiatus from being Sherlock Holmes, he'd infiltrated a monastery to dismantle a drug ring, caught criminals, convicted killers and withstood torture in a Serbian celler. He hadn't spoken to anyone about these things, not even Mycroft. Especially not Mycroft. It was bad enough that he'd seen-

Sherlock picked up several of the empty champagne glasses that were grouped together on the coffee table and set them down, rather pointlessly, on the mantle

He hadn't told John or Mary or any of them about how he had, unaided, brought down Moriarty's network, but an hour back in London and he was showing off his flimsiest disguises, laughing at his own jokes, trying (in between interruptions and the occasional attack) to explain to John how he'd faked his death. The one person he wanted to tell, and the one person who didn't want to know. Sometimes Sherlock wished he'd kept the skull.

Especially now, when the emptiness of 221B Baker Street seemed even more oppressive than the dust. (And why had they kept his rooms shrouded like a tomb when they didn't think he was coming back? It was silly. And worse, it was making him sneeze.) Sherlock had gotten used to the monastery. After a while, he'd even gotten used to the dungeon. The human mind, even other humans' minds, was remarkable in its ability to adapt. Harder, for some reason, was adapting to the idea of an empty 221B Baker Street.

John had never been a particularly noticeable flatmate. He spent most of his time reading the paper or writing his little blog. Maybe watching a bit of telly with the sound turned low so it wouldn't interrupt Sherlock's thinking. (And of course Sherlock had noticed that; he noticed everything.) But he'd always been there, in the background, reminding Sherlock of his presence now and again when he overreacted to the severed hand in the vegetable crisper or pushed a mug of hot sweet tea into Sherlock's hands. Read a funny obit aloud or turned up the telly when reruns of Connie Prince came on. Branded an empty carton of milk and shouted-

"What's the matter with you?"

Sherlock turned. John was standing in the doorway, peeling off his coat. There was a black poplar leaf clinging to the collar. The first of the poplars were planted three blocks away on Bickenhall. So he'd walked three blocks, then turned around and come back. But he'd hesitated. It had been a quarter hour since he'd left and the walk was less than five minutes either way, even accounting for John's limp, which was largely gone now, but returned sometimes if he was upset. And he must have been upset to hesitate for over five minutes. Or maybe he'd been talking with Mary, but he'd returned alone, which meant-

"Sherlock?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you not hear me? What's the matter with you?"

"Some sort of attention disorder, according to Mycroft, but Mrs. Hudson says that's just my natural boyishness. Bless her," Sherlock said, with some condescension, but hopefully enough fondness to make up for it.

"I mean physically."

"Physically?"

"Have you seen a doctor?" asked John.

"I can see you."

Sherlock knew he was being deliberately obtuse, but he spent so much time being accidentally brilliant that he felt he was due. Anyway, he hadn't the faintest idea what John was talking about. That happened more than he'd admit to, but it didn't worry him much anymore. He'd adapted to it. Anyway, it was always John's fault.

John sighed. "You haven't, have you? You of all people should know how tricky head injuries can be."

Suddenly Sherlock was standing seventy feet above London, the wind tossing his curls into his eyes, obscuring his view of view the body on the roof with the gun in his hand, the hole in his head, that grin still on his face. Then Sherlock blinked and he was back in 221B Baker Street.

"I've seen you wincing." John was still talking. "I ought to have taken you to the hospital."

"I've had enough of hospitals. Anyway, why should that be your responsibility? I am an adult, despite Mrs. Hudson's cooing."

"Seriously, Sherlock. Even minor head injuries can have complications."

"They weren't exactly minor," Sherlock muttered, aware he was being petulant, but not entirely sure why. Come to think of it, why hadn't Mycroft called up a doctor? Not that Sherlock needed his help, but it was so like Mycroft to provide a barber but not a doctor.

"Well, you know. Training. It just kicks in." John's voice was tight. He shifted his weight again, glanced about in a reflexive gesture that he probably didn't even notice, but Sherlock recognized as a search for his old cane.

"Which is really thick of them. That's not how you train someone to run an interrogation. People's memories tend to get a bit dodgy once they've taken one or two blows to the head. If you want information, you go for the phalanges. Plenty of pain, a satisfyingly frightening snap, and it makes it more difficult for them to escape. Though I still could have done, even if Mycroft hadn't stuck his abnormally large nose in my business."

"I don't- You-" John's face screwed up, giving him lines that aged him almost as much as the mustache had. Almost. "What?"

"Phalanges."

"What?"

"Finger bones. Or toes. Really, John, as a medical professional, you should know-"

"I know what phalanges are! I don't know what you're bloody talking about! Who was breaking your fingers?"

Sherlock blinked. Really, it was almost as bad as when John had found the hand in the vegetable crisper. "No one. I was just saying they should have broken my fingers."

"Who?" John looked like he very much wanted to head butt him again.

"The Serbs."

"What Serbs?"

"The ones I infiltrated in order to take to bits the last of Moriarty's organization." Hadn't he told John? Oh, no. Wait. He hadn't. Instead he'd told Anderson some ridiculous story about an air mattress, because at least he knew Anderson would listen.

"That's what you've been doing?"

"What? Did you think I was on holiday?" Sherlock sneered.

"No. I don't- I- They tortured you?"

"Well, that's a bit generous, but yeah," Sherlock sniffed superiorly. "They made a go of it."

"Then it sounds like "infiltrated" is a bit generous too." John sighed again. "No. Wait. Sorry. You were tortured? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was chained up." Sherlock thought that should have been obvious, but sometimes it astounded him what wasn't obvious to other people. "I couldn't exactly ring you. And you thought I was dead. Sorry, again."

"No. After you got back. Why didn't you tell me? You let me hit you!"

John sank into the leather chair. The cushions were lumpy from all the times Sherlock had sat on the back or the arms instead of the seat. He couldn't seem to do anything the normal way. And now it looked like he'd bunged something up again, because John was rubbing his bad leg, frowning down at the Union Flag pillow Sherlock had bought in a fit of queen and country after his first official case with Greg Lestrade of Scotland Yard. (Of course he remembered Lestrade's real name, but he'd thought it would be best if everything got back to normal as quickly as possible, and that was a trick when people kept going around hugging him.)

"Don't worry about it. I seem to have that effect on people." He had no idea why he was going for humor when it had been failing him so spectacularly of late. John just frowned harder.

Sherlock had told Mary the truth. He knew next to nothing about human nature. Just enough to explain, never enough to understand. But he'd always known about his own nature. It had always been perfectly logical. But now here he was, boasting and joking and begging. Sherlock didn't know how he felt about that. He didn't know how he felt about feeling.

It wasn't the first time Sherlock hadn't understood something, but it was the first time he hadn't understood himself. He was acting almost human.


	2. John

"Alright," said John. "Take your shirt off."

"Don't be ridiculous. You're engaged."

John choked. "I'm talking about examining you!"

Sherlock gave him a withering look. "So am I. You're engaged by the hospital. They wouldn't like it if you did freelance work. I remember a case, before your time: A surgeon at a local hospital was illegally performing cosmetic surgery on her friends, and accidentally severed-"

"For god's sake, Sherlock! It's not surgery, it's just a few bruises. Right? Sherlock?"

John frowned when Sherlock didn't answer. Sherlock always answered. He answered questions asked of other people. He answered questions not asked at all.

"Sherlock?"

"Oh, I don't know!" he snapped, flinging bony fingers in the air. "I've been busy, haven't I?"

"Take your shirt off," John said again, but this time he used the tone he'd learned in the army, the one Sherlock always obeyed, maybe didn't even realize he always obeyed. Just in case, John saved it for emergencies to keep him from catching on.

Sherlock sighed, but shrugged out of his jacket, another wince, and started undoing his buttons. Already John could already see evidence of damage, shadows underneath the thin white cotton that hinted at bruises. And more than just a few.

Sherlock turned his back as though he, a man who'd gone to Buckingham Palace in nothing but a bed sheet, was embarrassed. There were pinkish stains on the back of his shirt.

How could John have missed this? He was a doctor. But damn it all, Sherlock was right. Sherlock was always right. They had been busy. In the past few days, John had tried (and failed) to propose, seen a (best) friend come back from the dead, been kidnapped and nearly burned to death, and stopped (or helped to stop) a bomb from obliterating Parliament. He still couldn't quite believe it had all happened. It felt like a dream, and not the least because Sherlock was there.

He had been distracted, yes, and angry, and scared, and nostalgic, and resentful, and hopeful and so, so grateful, and a million other things, more than the stars in the sky, so many that he could no longer point to a single one, like Sherlock and his bloody Van Buren Supernova, and say, "This, this is how I'm feeling."

But that was no excuse to attack someone who was already injured. That was no excuse to let a friend suffer in silence. John had sworn an oath to do no harm, and watching Sherlock undo the buttons of his shirt with shaking fingers, he was suddenly very worried that he had broken his oath.

Then Sherlock was standing, shirtless, in the middle of the flat. He dropped his shirt on the floor, like he didn't know what to do with it and couldn't be bothered to find out. To be fair, he treated most of his possessions like that, but for some reason John couldn't stop starting at the crumbled, reddened cloth. He forced himself to look at Sherlock instead.

Dark, grim bruises shrouded most of his back, rippling across his muscles like living things, hiding in the shadows of his shoulder blades and stretching fingers across his ribs. His bones couldn't be broken or he wouldn't still be standing, but John suspected something had cracked. At the heart of the worst bruises were welts, some puckered, some open and bleeding sluggishly. Weeping, was the medical term. His wounds were weeping.

Still, Sherlock didn't turn to face him, which meant he must know how serious his injuries were, but he still hadn't sought treatment. John suspected it was for the same reason he hadn't made a move to defend at the restaurant. Or the cafe. Or-

"Why did you let me hit you?" John whispered, so harsh it was almost a hiss.

Sherlock looked like he would shrug but then thought better of it. "Who says I let you do anything? You're a soldier. As you're so fond of reminding us all."

"And you're a- God knows what, but you know how to fight. You almost did. I saw it. Because you're right, I am a soldier, and I recognizing a wristlock when I see one. When I attacked you, you grabbed my wrists, on instinct, but then you stopped yourself. Why?"

Again, Sherlock didn't answer. Again, John frowned. "You need to go to a hospital."

"No."

"Sherlock-"

"Not the hospital. Not any hospital."

John sighed. "You need stitches."

"You can do it."

"I don't have the equipment."

"I do." Sherlock finally turned to face him.

"Of course you do. Have you got anesthetic?"

"Don't need it," he said dismissively.

"It'll hurt."

Sherlock gave a grim little smile. "Well, consider it an engagement gift. Many happy returns."

John didn't know what to say to that, so he said, "You don't wish someone many happy returns when they get engaged. That's for birthdays. Otherwise it means you hope they'll get engaged again."

"What do you say then?"

He shrugged. "Congratulations. You're a lovely couple. By the way, I'm not dead, but I have been tortured by Serbs and need sutures, so go get the kit, John."

"It's a little long to put on a card."

"As if you'd buy a card. Is the suture kit in the breadbox still?"

"Well, I obviously haven't moved it," Sherlock sneered.

"Right."

John hurried to the kitchen. He almost wished Sherlock would go back to acting like it was all a big joke. Anything was better than this. Sherlock was being moody and hostile, which for him was perfectly normal, but there was an edge to it that had never been there before.

He pushed aside the Jammy Dodgers and pulled out a packet of needles, brushing off crumbs. He washed his hands, found a clean dishtowel (bless Mrs. Hudson), and filled a bowl with hot water. Boiling would be better, but he wasn't sure Sherlock would wait for the kettle.

When he got back to the living room, Sherlock was sitting on the stool. He'd dragged it over to the leather chair (which was stupid, after John had gone to get the suture kit just so he wouldn't have to exert himself any more), so that John could sit down while he worked.

The conditions were less than ideal, but John was an army doctor, so it was easy to fall back on his training. No signs of infection, and only two of the welts looked grave enough to require stiches. He saturated the towel and wrung it out before applying it to the highest laceration, the one approximately six inches below the hairline.

Sherlock flinched.

Sherlock, who would have heard the water drops hitting the bowl. Sherlock, who would have deduced that John would start with the highest welt, so the dirty water wouldn't run down into wounds he'd already cleaned. Sherlock, who would have predicted John's movements as easily as he foretold his own.

And that's when John realized what the edge was: Trauma. He felt doubly ashamed. As a doctor he should have seen Sherlock's physical injuries. As a soldier, he should have seen the mental ones.

Never mind Sherlock's bones. Something much more vital had cracked.


	3. Sherlock Again

John was telegraphing his movements, the way pediatric physicians did for small children. With his back turned, Sherlock couldn't see him, so instead John was using touch, fingertips skimming the undamaged skin around a bruise before he went to work.

After that first, humiliating flinch, Sherlock made sure to hold perfectly still when he felt the needle. It was easy enough to master pain when you knew it was coming. It was just that he hadn't been expecting John's initial, gentle touch.

As John stitched, he spoke. "So how did you do it?"

"What?"

"You know, the thirteen possibilities. How'd you fake the jump?"

Sherlock knew John was just trying to provide a distraction from the pain. He was probably expecting some elaborate explanation, involving with air mattresses and bungee cords.

"I didn't."

"I don't understand."

"I went to the roof to kill Moriarty."

He could feel John's hesitation in the rhythm of the stitches, but before he could say anything, Sherlock licked his chapped lips and kept talking in a hoarse voice.

"I knew that he would summon me to my death just as surely as Moriarty knew that I would come. I'd followed the cabbie, after all. I even knew where the final meeting would take place. Saint Barth's was where we first met. No, Moriarty wouldn't be able to resist that.

"And if we were at the hospital, Molly could be the one to discover our bodies. She could plant the lookalike that Moriarty had used to kidnap the kiddies. She had to disfigure the face, but Moriarty had already done most of that for us. By the time you got there, it would be in the morgue, with a toe tag labeled Sherlock Holmes.

"It would look like James Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes had done each other in. There would be no reason to doubt it. And in death, I would be free to track down Moriarty's network without interference."

Sherlock took a slow, shallow breath. He'd been waiting two years to say this, but it was more difficult than he'd expected. (And why was it difficult to speak? He never had any trouble speaking. According to John, he sometimes had a hard time shutting up.)

"I underestimated him. He told me there were three gunmen in position to kill you, Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade if I didn't jump, but I was arrogant. I thought I only had to alter my plan a little. I would torture him before I killed him. I would force him to call off the gunman. But I wasn't prepared for how far Moriarty was willing to go."

Neither man spoke for a moment. John finished the last of the sutures and pulled a roll of gauze from the pack. He let his fingers ghost over Sherlock's ribs and then began to bind them.

"Moriarty really did commit suicide?"

"Yes," said Sherlock.

"Then what did you do?"

"You saw what I did."


	4. John Again

"You didn't have a plan?"

"No." Sherlock sounded almost ashamed, but his back was turned so John couldn't be sure.

"That was you? Falling? It wasn't a trick? That was really you?"

"The distance from the roof of Saint Barth's to the pavement is approximately seventy feet. People have fallen that far and survived before."

"They've fallen that far and died before too. Those things you said. Your note." John had to swallow several times before he could continue speaking. "You thought you were going to die, didn't you?"

"There was a possibility of survival, with a windspeed of fifteen miles per hour, at an angle of-"

"Didn't you?"

"Yes."

John shook his head, like he was disagreeing with something. "And you did it to save me?"

"Don't flatter yourself," said Sherlock. "I did it to save Mrs. Hudson."

John let out a laugh, choked and desperate.

He finished binding Sherlock's ribs, making sure the conforming bandage was secure, smoothing the gauze down onto itself. Sherlock had, impossibly, lost weight in the past two years, with no one to force biscuits on him in between cases. His vertebrae were visible, and John could feel his heart beat through the pale, papery skin of his back.

"There was no pulse."

"You missed it."

"I didn't."

"You must have. Molly and my homeless network moved me quickly. She still made the swap, had me transported to a hospital out of the country before the press had even smelled blood."

He knew it was just a metaphor, but as soon as Sherlock said that, John could see the blood in between the paving stones, in between his fingers, in Sherlock's eyes. Maybe they were both a little cracked.

Sherlock's shoulders bowed slightly, like he'd finished a case and could finally rest. The adrenaline had to be wearing off, from the pain, from the job, from the past two years.

"I never meant for you to see it."

"I believe you," said John. He laughed again, this time a little less desperate. "Always did."


End file.
